R. Clarke Cooper, the executive
director of the gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans, has called on
Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich to repudiate a pledge
from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) each signed
promising to work against gay marriage.

The GOP presidential candidates signed
the group's 5-point pledge last summer.

In on op-ed published Tuesday by the
Washington
Times, Cooper criticized recent revelations that the group
was working on a strategy to pit minorities against supporters of
marriage equality.

“NOM put explicit plans to exploit
racial divisions on paper,” Cooper wrote. “'The strategy goal of
this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks.' Regarding
immigrants, 'We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making
support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity.' NOM's ultimate
agenda? 'Fanning the hostility' between LGBT Americans and racial
minorities.”

“Before the Iowa caucuses, Republican
presidential candidates, including Governor Mitt Romney, rightly
chose to reject a marriage pledge sponsored by a group called The
Family Leader because the organization appealed to racial division.
The NOM marriage pledge signed by Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt
Gingrich should be similarly repudiated now.”

GOP presidential hopeful Fred Karger
has also called on his rivals to disavow the pledge.

NOM has previous gone after Texas Rep.
Ron Paul for not signing its pledge, which asks signers to support a
federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, defend the
Defense of Marriage of Act (DOMA) in court, appoint judges and an
attorney general who will “respect the original meaning of the
Constitution,” appoint a presidential commission to investigate the
“harassment of traditional marriage supporters,” and back
legislation that would allow a ballot question on the issue for
voters of the District of Columbia.